My name is ROSE NEWTON, and I sell my body on the streets of San Francisco. I’m what you call society’s dirty little secret. On the outside, I’m in control, the woman who makes her own rules and gives nothing away for free. Inside, I’m broken and numb. Torn and shattered by my past, my life is nothing more than the lost fragments of what’s left of me.

SHANE WEST represents everything that’s foreign to me. He’s brave, kind, funny, gorgeous and persistent. When fate brings us face to face, an undeniable attraction blazes between us. He becomes the constant I’ve never had and the only man I’ll ever trust.

There is nothing simple about falling in love when you’re keeping a secret like mine.

Inspiration is an integral part of the writing process, without it you are stuck. I don’t have a lot of problems with inspiration; it seems to overrun my mind. However, once I started a book with giant eagles (Shahira and the Flying Elfs) and was so busy with promoting my already published books that a year went by, before I knew it. When I tried to continue writing it, I wasn’t sure where to start and nothing came to mind. Now that in itself is strange for me…I always have ideas running trough my head.

Art is like being able to project our most inner self, hidden parts of our mind and heart we might’ve forgotten that exist and they appear to remind us to feel again, to recognize our human and empathetic nature. Art doesn’t take sides – it’s a guidance to different perspectives and modalities of human existence and behavior.

When an interviewer asked Marina Abramovic: “How do you know you are artist?”, she said: “Art is like breathing, you simply have to do it, in order to feel and stay alive”. So, there is an ingrained need to create, to contribute to the world using your own tools, language and ways of expressions. That need is larger than the artist himself, larger than the need to get recognition or reward. That need translates an experience he’s propelled to share and as itself is sure enough reason for him to sustain his creating.

We all know the saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” but let’s be honest, this usually applies to people, and not actually a book. If we are really keeping it honest here, then readers and authors alike understand that books really are judged by the cover. A book cover is the very first thing a reader sees whether that is on a shelf at the bookstore or library, or online.

by Lee Guthrie, Dystopian/Post-Apocalyptic, Rating: 4 starsBeyond Here Lies Nothing pays heavy homage to the Fallout Series of video games. The author acknowledges this by quoting Fallout New Vegas at the beginning of the book, so the reader can expect an experience that delivers the adventure and tragedy of wandering the wasteland.

The story follows protagonist Lily on her search for the fabled Haven, a promised land of sorts. Along the way she stumbles upon Operative 74, a deserter on the run from the Coalition. The Coalition is the big, bad military expansionist power intent on usurping the surrounding independent and fertile lands. The two are polar opposites but form an uneasy alliance in order to survive the dangers of the wastes.

A few days ago, I made my first appearance at a local literature festival (Trent Academy Lit Fest 2017), where I held a question and answer session at a student book club and held four creative writing workshops for young enthusiasts. As well as watching incredible, fresh imagination at work, I was intrigued to observe the writing technique of some of these aspiring authors.

As I set my writers a variety of fiction exercises, I soon began to notice a recurring technical pattern that often prevented their prose from breaking into the realms of excellence. Interestingly, it was the same mistake I myself had struggled to overcome throughout my early teenage years. That is, the mistake of telling, not showing.